Fashion faux pas of our teenage years

Nowadays, walking round the Holylands, or even the McClay library at 6am on a stressful all-nighter, it would seem that half the people about are applying for a modelling contract.

Girls and boys alike follow the latest fashion trends, but never worry. If you feel that someone out there has better clothes and more style than you, always remember; everyone starts somewhere.

These following em.. “Reminders” on what the style was like from the years when you were 11-16 are at least 95% applicable to every student you see walking around today.

Leggings & skirts

I remember the outfit I wore to my first ever teenage Glenavon disco in Cookstown (or ” da GlenPen t3h3″ as it was fondly referred to on Bebo in those days).

‘Twas a pink stripy t-shirt, a denim mini skirt with pink rhinestones, and pink 3/4 length leggings.

KATE MOSS EAT YOUR HEART OUT. This however, was not uncommon of most girls between the 2005-2007 period. If you had every colour of leggings you were like a fashion queen…

Which brings us on to the upgrade in the skirt/leggings department to…

Dresses & Coloured tights

Following the breakthrough of The Saturdays into the world, with their music video ‘Up’, I made it my mission to go on a hunt for every colour of tights to then wear on different nights out with the same black dress.

*Warning – this style was not advised to be worn during summer nights, as the sweat would drip off ya more than it did the walls of the Glenavon on the second floor*

Coloured Beads

Girls, we did seem to love our colours back then. Following the coloured tights trend, you HAD to have accessories to match.

This mainly consisted of those big round bubble stud earrings you got in Primark for about a quid, and those long bead necklaces that you wrapped twice around your neck.

Has Vogue called for us yet?

NEONS

Sorry, I felt the word neons had to be in caps BECAUSE THEY CATCH YOUR EYES AND BURN THEM. Remember those days, of Clubland Live and the likes? When everyone had the neon tutus and legwarmers out? Glowsticks galore? Those were better times.

Whereas the youth of today are getting drugged up at Hardwell, we were just drinking alcopops in an overloaded mini bus listening to Basshunter. Simpler, simpler times.

Strangely enough, neons are pretty back in fashion right now, which is making me sad that I lost those luminous pink heels at Dance Nation when I was 15.

Just goes to show folks, throw nothing out, it may all come back into style… although I hope to God the rest of the things on this list don’t.

 

Checked/striped shirts & brown shoes

Time to give the fellas a wee trip down memory lane here, especially those lil country bumpkins, who were distinguishable right away; checked/striped shirt, brown belt, jeans, brown shoes.

That was the outfit, every teenage disco (some even continue the trend today). It always makes me wonder though… was there a particular place they all went to buy this same outfit?

Did they own the same shirt and shoes and just continue wearing them or did they have loads of different ones of the same variety? So many questions, not enough fucks given.

 

Those gel spikes

Again, the boys all seemed to go for one look when it came to their hair in the teenage years.

That was the ole spikes that defied gravity. I remember asking my friend once how long it took him to do his hair and he said about 5 minutes, but that ‘do looked like he had been hanging upside down in a bat cave for a month.

All thanks to a severe overuse of Dax Wax.

Fringes glued to the head

For the minority of boy who didn’t have the aforementioned spikes upon their bap, they had the good ‘ole “emo” fringes, that quite literally seemed to stick to their foreheads, and often covered one eye.

Because as you know, the allure of a one-eyed male is one the ladies find hard to resist.

Of course, the ladies in question seemed to follow this sticky fringe trend themselves. Hairspray at the ready; if your fringe was split in photos, that was your night ruined.

Hoods

Both sexes are guilty of this one, and a lot of young people today still are.

There’s a reason a few politicians tried to ban all teenagers from wearing their hoods up a couple of years back. We were all intimidating as fuck.

If I met my 13-year-old self round McDonald’s at 11 o’clock at night nowadays I would definitely suspect that she had a knife. Of course this wasn’t the case; we all just wanted to look “cool”.

Little did we know, Henley’s and Superdry brand hoodies were not the best way to achieve this.

Don’t get me wrong, I still wear hoodies today (especially on those cold, hungover times in the Holylands), but was there really a cause for 50 prepubescents to be standing around the town on a warm Friday night with their hoods all up?

The police may not have gotten us, but the fashion police probably should have.